Changing with the Times and Keep On Learning

When you first start out with your computer business, you may think that any client that comes along is a good client. Money is money right? Especially when you’ve just quit your 9 to 5 job to become a freelancer. Perhaps you are keeping busy in the beginning because you are the only business in your small town selling cheap computers? When you first started out your markup was only $100 per computer so you can establish a good client base and it seemed to work for a good year or so. However, the college student working out of his dormitory has decided to start is own computer business in your area. Worse still, because his overheads a relatively low working out of his bedroom his markup for new computers is only $50. Many customers in your small town pounce on this offer and your business starts to slow down. What are you going to do?

If you think you are safe from this scenario because you are doing something totally different from any other business, keep in mind that success rarely goes unnoticed and someone else will also want to try their hand at what you are doing.

The key to business survival is to keep on learning. Learn new ways to market your business, better ways to manage staff and of course, keep up to date with new technology. Personally, the first time I encountered a Vista machine onsite I spent a few minutes simply looking for the Run command icon. I must have looked pretty incompetent. After that job I ended up buying a copy of Windows Vista even though I had no interest in using it on my own computers. I wanted to learn how to fix it and figure out where many of the features had moved to since a lot of things have changed since Windows XP.

Changing with the times doesn’t mean mean you should put all your free time into experimenting with all sorts of new hardware and software that takes your interest in hopes that you can stock and sell it later down the track. Only your customers can tell you what direction they are moving in. It also doesn’t mean that you should go back to school and gain a few certifications.

Wait for new technologies to emerge and take note of when customers ask for it, I believe that is a good sign its time to learn it. Never become too complacent, no matter how successful you currently are. Never stop learning otherwise you will be left behind in the dust.